HS rigged? Matchmaking favoritism

Multiplayer Discussion
63

You get insulted by people holding an opinion about something that has no proof or evidence one way or the other? I find that intriguing. I’ve always thought that people are entitled to their own opinion, especially when there isn’t a shred of evidence indicating something is true or not.

I’m always amazed at how people never see their own bias, misinterpret the fact that since their beliefs are theirs, the onus of proof is on the party with an incongruent opinion to change their mind on the topic.

The truth is more complex than that, and it’s safe to assume you only understand a tiny portion of what’s true. Progress is only made when open minds discuss disagreement amicably. Infact, discussing disagreement has historically been the single largest contributor to human knowledge and understanding.

Come now, believing the earth is flat is disagreeing with mounds of scientific evidence that indicates the contrary. Providing alternative explanations to each scientific observation that indicates the earth is not flat is absurd, the probability that each independent observation is indeed explainably wrong would simply be vanishing.

Comparing this to a topic where there is zero scientific evidence other than a bunch of forum dwellers repeating the same thing as a mantra is not the same thing. Check your bias.

I adamantly sit on the fence on this topic, I’m convinced by neither hypothesis and see both as a possibility until further concrete evidence comes to light to shift the balance of probabilities.

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64

This describes you, not us.

The onus is on the affirmative to show conclusive proof that the game is rigged against them.

That’s how debate works.

Until then, you’re just a troll.

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65

How so. I adamantly sit on the fence, I don’t believe your side or the other as there is not enough evidence to prove either, or even to suggest one is more likely than the other.

That is logically the most correct conclusion.

I also don’t require evidence, I’m quite happy with my stance.

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66

This is a disingenuous argument.

The position that “we can’t prove the game isn’t rigged” is kinda like saying “we can’t prove that Bigfoot doesn’t exist.” Technically, we don’t have the power to prove that Bigfoot doesn’t exist, but we have definitively, beyond any shadow of a doubt, determined that if Bigfoot(s) (Bigfeet?) exists, they are rare.

The typical rigging believer is the equivalent of someone saying that they can’t even go to the grocery store anymore because with all the Bigfeet out there, they can’t even. It is a stupid and unironically insane thing to believe, the evidence is more than sufficient to utterly debunk it, and it is insulting to sane people when they say that the evidence for rigging is “blatant” and “obvious.” You can say what you like about the findings of the thread I created recently on VS report data irregularities, but the one thing it absolutely is NOT is “blatant” or “obvious.”

Of course, this “anyone who isn’t a shill can see it” position is not the universal position, and even I’ve recently begun to question whether or not the game is, say, 3% rigged. So I’m not taking some extremist hardliner approach like “no rigging period,” and I can respect concern that there might be subtle manipulations (key word: subtle). But crackpot conspiracy theorists pushing obvious lies are pretty annoying and Altair has every right to be annoyed by them.

And no, we don’t need to be nice to them. If they don’t like it they can leave.

67

Yes, they are. But they can also be:

a) judgemental, or
b) Prospecting/perceiving.

When you’re judgemental and opinionated (which you have to be if you reach conclusions without proof, by definition), then your opinion is offensive

I can choose to not get offended, and I should, but it’s de facto offensive.

If they think it’s rigged, then I have to be stupid for tryharding in a rigged game.

It’s what logic says. They might not be aware of that, but it’s true. And they DO, in fact, consider me stupid. I’ve talked to enough of them, enough times, to know that’s the case.

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68

Because you’re acting on faith, not reason.

69

He said he isn’t expressing an opinion either way.
That does not require faith.

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70

I don’t expect you to understand how that’s wrong and why it’s faith because you also embody the quote I used from that poster.

Blizzard could literally divulge the entire code and people “on the fence” would still be unconvinced… because their position isn’t based on facts or evidence.

71

If they don’t have an opinion, then nothing is required to sustain that position.
Although I’m unsure why they would offer their noncommittal.

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72

… you’re choosing to reject status quo, which is most assuredly an opinion.

What did Neil say?

“If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice”

Edit: great, now I have that funky bass line that comes right after that verse stuck in my head.

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73

Great answer. I love Neil. Greatest drummer ever, maybe.

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74

May he rest in peace.

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75

The hidden opinion in that apparent non-opinion is that not having an opinion on said topic is a reasonable and sustainable position. So nope, it’s actually an active opinion and requires faith.

76

Faith in the nothingness of being indecisive or something close, I’ll presume:)

77

Mostly to highlight that neither side has presented any good evidence one way or another, and that it’s absurd that both sides continue to argue about something that can be shown to be one way or another, if they had access to the source code, for example.

In fact, I haven’t even seen a single authoritative and objective definition of what it means for the matchmaking algorithm to be rigged, so that means both sides are arguing about a vague notion they have of the concept. Once it’s defined, you can’t move the goalposts and so I suspect most arguments on both sides would just crumble.

Effectively, everyone who participates in this argument seems to do so for the opportunity to berate those in the other camp rather than to make progress on the issue at hand. In fact, I’ve come under scrutiny and am suspect enough to have derisive comments thrown my way with my explicit non committal on the topic.

On the one hand I find that somewhat humorous. On the other hand, somewhat sad.

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78

Well bless your little heart, aren’t you neat.

This is the part you’ve got wrong.

Ever take debate in highschool or college? If you say something is rigged in debate without evidence, your opponent can literally say “no, it’s not” and you lose. That’s it. That simple.

Because the burden of proof lies with those who believe blizzard has lied to prove where and or how they have lied. Until then, status quo is the match is how they say it is.

Hilarious, right? Ask five different people who believe it’s rigged and you’re going to get a host of different and sometimes even mutually exclusive replies. It’s nuts… because it’s all delusional fever dreams to protect fragile egos.

It’s literally stories they tell themselves to feel better.

And lots of people have been challenged to explain it, and those answers are hilarious.

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80

Ahhh thank you for painting a clearer picture of your perspective. I think I now understand your position.

You seem to approach these discussions as a zero sum game, where there is a loser and a winner as defined by some metric, perhaps a utility score based on how much “street cred” you can garner during the process, or some other such metric?

That concept, I will not lie, is somewhat foreign to me. My formal training is in mathematics and my main purpose in discussion with other’s is to learn. And that can mean many things, sometimes it means learning together by understanding the topic at hand better, other times it means correcting a false or incorrect belief. There is a certain non zero sum trade-off in this type of interaction where both myself and other’s benefit when accounted over several interactions, where learning can be directed, sometimes I learn sometimes other’s.

Most importantly, when I discuss with other’s, for me to “believe” their position, all they have to do is prepend the phrase “suppose that”. That’s it. Then I seriously consider what they say next. Why? Because I want to learn. And in mathematics when someone says “suppose that…” They have a purpose, and it may not be clear to you until you listen to what they have to say. For example, they can use that statement to start a proof by contradiction. They can say “suppose that the Hearthstone MMR matching algorithm is rigged, where by rigged we mean…” , and then they can arrive at a logical contradiction, implying that the only possibility is that their original assumption was incorrect.

What I don’t understand is why not entertain the possibility? What’s it to you if it’s one way or another? Are you somehow personally invested in the outcome?

Or are you simply driven to win at the zero sum game that debating seems to be?

81

Rigging if it does exists effects your opponents as much as it effects you and this rigging balances itself out. No one is getting more rigged than anyone else over the long run. Even if you can prove the game is 100% rigged there is nothing you can do about it other than stop playing the game you believe is rigged against you.

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82

Let’s try to apply practice from criminal law, as we lack any other means of proof, but first, let’s define what rigging in this case really means.

Step 1: Defining “rigging”

Based on Merriam-Webster dictionary, “rigging” is a slang term which means:

Manipulating or controling usually by deceptive or dishonest means

OK, that’s a nice start.

Step 2: Accusations:

Step 2 in criminal law is providing accusations. In our case, we have a couple of different accusations flying around:

Accusation 1: Blizzard has (and uses) a patent which matches players who have a skin for some weapon in CoD with players who don't and puts them into a map which is favorable for players who use a weapon for which they want to sell the skin of. The accusation goes on to say that they do this to get more money, and that they use that patent on Hearthstone, as well, although Blizzard says they never even used it on CoD.

Accusation 2: Blizzard uses deceptive matchmaking to match players based on their counters, to make them spend more money in the game because they lose too much.

Accusation 3: Blizzard uses deceptive matchmaking based on deck construction to reward more expensive decks to motivate people to buy those cards/decks.

In all cases, intent and exists. Now, we have to prove they also had the means and the motive to do that.

Step 3: Motive

Accusation 1 motive: Sell more weapons/cards in this case - check. The motive exists.

Accusation 2 motive: Sell more cards + make players spend more time playing - check. The motive exists.

Accusation 3 motive: Sell more cards + make players spend more time playing - check. The motive exists.

Step 4: Means

Accusation 1 means: No way to push selling cards that way because there are no maps where certain cards/weapons are more favorable to win - Means nonexistant.

Accusation 2 means: It's impossible to match players on average more against their counters, because this game is a zero-sum game, so when someone gets matched with their counter, the other person gets matched with the deck they counter. In overall, it cancels out.

Accusation 3 means: It's impossible to achieve selling more of some cards with deceptive **matchmaking** because the game also depends on the skills of the pilot, so the skills determine the cards' functionality. Also, RNG nature of the game makes the cards less able to achieve this because they sometimes don't get drawn or sometimes don't work as intended in certain matchups.

However, it IS possible to achieve step 3 by intentionally designing and dropping broken cards to push sales of those cards, and nerfing them afterwards. It technically does mean the game is “rigged” like that, but it has nothing to do with matchmaking AND it doesn’t serve the INTENT of the accusation, because once nerfed, the cards can be disenchanted for full value back.

Also, it’s possible to achieve intent number 3 by using RNG, which we all know and accept as a part of the game. RNG will lead to more playtime because:

a) A player keeps switching between winning and losing, which prolongs their grind, and
b) Variablity of RNG naturally gets people addicted to the game, as they know they will win and get their dopamine shot, but they don’t know when that’s going to happen.

In this case, it’s normal and accepted, and it’s the reason why we all play the game at all.

Conclusion: Matchmaking is not rigged. Deceitful business practices used aren't illegal nor damage the players' agency. People who know all this and still BELIEVE the matchmaking is rigged, are wrong and most likely have mental issues.

By rigging the game, you’d actually have the counter-effect:

a) People would lose more than random, and leave because they wouldn’t get addicted to the game, or
b) The game would be unbalanced, thus also causing people to leave the game because they refuse to play a certain deck or a playstyle, so you have to shuffle and vary what is broken from time to time, thus making it fair and balanced.

It’s literally impossible for anyone who thinks otherwise to prove this post wrong because the very motives and intents which they use as a proof are the reason why it isn’t so. It’s a paradox, and checkmate. It’s not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of cognitive and mental health.

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83

Long story short, it’s all just RNG, and people have double standards and biases when it comes to that RNG. They also have a conspiratorial worldview due to being lonely in crucial developing periods of their lives.

They know it’s true. They just don’t care to admit it. It’s easier to claim it’s just rigged, because it feels better.

And the intensity of emotions in their responses to logic confirms it. It proves it.

I, in fact, CAN prove anything I say. They can’t, and they don’t care to.

                        ***They are not motivated to.***